1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to methods and apparatus for providing surface finishes on fabrics and in particular to an abrasive coated wire for surface finishing fabrics to have raised loops, broken loops, fleeced or suede finishes.
2. Description of Related Art
A common method of producing suede fabric is to use a finishing machine having a rotating cylinder. A coated abrasive such as sandpaper is wrapped around the cylinder. The finishing machine cylinder is brought in contact with a fabric as it passes through the machine producing a suede finish. However, debris from the sueding process packs into the sandpaper, and the sandpaper has to be changed frequently. Frequent changes of sandpaper create expensive down time during which time no fabric is being finished by the machine.
In the prior art, a napping machine is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,175,224, issued Mar. 23, 1965 to Charles Bertrand. This machine uses two napping rolls as a rotating cylinder. One of the napping rolls comprises numerous wires or pins mounted in a fabric base having hooked shaped ends. The hooked pins draw through the surface of the fabric, such as blanket cloth, to produce a markedly high nap. The other napping roll commonly known as the counterpile roll normally comprises wire having straight points at the ends of the wires. However, this patent discloses wires having flattened, knife-like or chisel-like ends for tucking or smoothing the wild of teasled fibers resulting from the action of the hook shaped wires. Further, this patent does not disclose coating such as wires to achieve improved performances.
In U.S. Pat. No. 2,937,412, issued May 24, 1960 to John D. Hollingsworth, a carding tooth is disclosed for carding and opening textile fiber stocks such as cotton, wool, synthetics, etc. Round wire is cut to required length and shaped to generally U-shaped form with angularly offset extremities. Each U-shaped wire is set in a flexible foundation consisting equally of a number of plies of cloth. This patent teaches that roughening the side surface of the wire teeth improves carding or fiber opening operation. However, this procedure has not been adopted by the trade. In fact, it is common knowledge that rough edges on card wire are a negative in the carding operation.
The roughening of the side surfaces may be produced by scoring the wire with a grinding wheel of 40 grit in criss-cross design. The wheel being allowed to touch the wire only to the extent of producing the scored and roughened surface. Hollingsworth further discloses that the roughened effect was practically achieved with hard chromium plating on slightly rough wire surfaces, the plating magnifying the original roughness in its tendency to deposit on the high peaks and thereby to accentuate the roughness of the surfaces. Hollingsworth also discloses a like result obtained by spraying metal on the surfaces of the wire to obtain a surface having a pronounced roughness for carding operations. Although Hollingsworth states that the roughening of the teeth (or wire) was found to effect a pronounced improvement in the carding function, this has not been found to be true by those skilled in the carding business. Further, this patent does not teach a method of providing a soft finish on a fabric using a metal coated wire.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,467,505, issued Aug. 28, 1984, to Toru Mitsuyoshi et al., and assigned to Hiroyuki Kanai of Ashiya, Japan, raising machine wire clothing is described having wires on counter pile rollers of substantially diamond-shape cross-sections of four equal sides enclosing two obtuse and two acute angles and a radius of less than 0.1 mm at the acute angle corners of the cross-section of the wires. Wires on the pile rollers have a circular cross-section. By the use of the set of rollers on a raising machine, short piles drawn out by the clothing of the pile rollers are cut by the clothing of the counter pile roller such that a suede tone finish of the short pile and high density can be produced. The density of the wire points on the foundation cloth is within the range of 150-500 points per square inch. Another embodiment of the wire for counter pile rollers can be of a type having a cross-section which is either elliptical or sector shaped. Another embodiment of the wire for the pile rollers can be of a type having elliptical cross-sections. However, this patent does not disclose a metal coated wire for producing more efficiently a suede tone finish.